


Ink Spilled

by Crowsister



Series: Rough Draft Babbling of Daughters & Decisions [3]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 09:29:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4054984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowsister/pseuds/Crowsister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Praxidice ponders her feelings and an upcoming danger. Set after Declaration of War, Chapter 3 of the Sith Warrior Storyline. Contains spoilers</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ink Spilled

He underestimated her, even in his understanding of her. He believed that since others wrote him off as an Imperial officer, since others fell for his defense mechanisms for all that he was and believed that all he was was a sentient rule-book, that she would pick up her pen and write him _off_ the same as others did. Yet here she was, spilling metaphorical ink like blood as she wrote about how her heart danced like her old owner's dancers inside her chest at the mere thought of unraveling his mind and seeing him. Him as he truly was, every aspect of him, good and bad. Little did he know that she usually was the one to be given up on for many different reasons (being a slave, being a Sith Lord’s daughter, being Sith) before she ever had a real chance to really be **herself**.

She had let herself open to him, little by little. It was an accident, never intended. Normally, things went according to plan and she wouldn’t be in this mess if she had been...less herself. And now...now she was in this...this mess of an ink spill. If she was lucky, she could turn this into an art piece and be proud of it for ages to come. If she was...less than lucky...she might just end up drowning in her own ink.

She had known the possibility of Captain Quinn being a spy from the moment he knelt before her and asked if he could serve on her ship. Darth Baras's name in history should be the Lord of Spies for when historical holocrons talk of him. He had so many spies that they were practically flies. Quinn deserved so much more than the short life of a fly. She had used her own defense mechanisms, teasing and flirting it off, to hide her disappointment of a growing possibility that she would have to kill this brilliant man. She had seen a future, a future far away from her, in which Quinn could rise to his proper station for the good of the Empire. Not a Force vision, not something Seen, but something she could foretell from just standing in the same room as the man and experiencing the boon of his skills on several missions.

It was regrettable that there was now the risk of having to kill Quinn. Praxidice felt some sympathy for the overseer her mother had bribed in the Sith Academy, Overseer Tremel. He had been placed in a similar situation as she was in now. Kill her or be killed. Such a messy and inefficient moral with Sith narratives, was there no concept of strategic mercy? Or was mercy all washed out among the war between the Sith and the Jedi? To get Tremel to give up his hand, to accept that she wasn’t going to kill him, she had had to talk him into believing that she was going to set up a political trap against Baras later. Praxidice wasn’t even certain if she could do that, but she just might have to now that Baras’s paranoia turned its ugly head onto her.

Quinn had not been subtle in telling her that he owed his career to Baras when they both served under Baras. Quinn had opened up to her as she had him, which was both a blessing and a curse. It made her biased when it came to decisions about him, even if knowing his deeper facets was an advantage in itself. Quinn was now a liability and liabilities should be _cut_ out of the fold. But...Praxidice feared her bias about Quinn might be coming into play with this train of thought, but perhaps even liabilities can be retooled.

In her mother’s training, she had been tasked to keep a garden for a month. Thornsniper plants, dagger thorns, harrowbane, floating archidia, meat flowers - among the dangerous there was the beautiful. Malreaux and Tarisian roses, as well as Korriban’s bloodflowers. Her own reward for herself each day was to bypass all the dangers and subdue them so that she may reach the roses. The Malreaux roses were her favorite, sweet smelling and beautiful. So red that they were purple or black in certain lighting, a color perhaps akin to darker wines. Of course, one would have to be careful of the thorns, but to be humbled by such a flower’s beauty was worth a few seconds time to be careful in placing her hands on a flower’s stem.

Malavai Quinn was her Malreaux rose, her mother had not been wrong in calling him that. For it was the truth. And Praxidice would have to be careful to avoid his thorns, for his thorns were even more dangerous than the dagger thorns and thornsniper plants in her mother’s garden. His thorns were both poisonous and ready to launch, but they were controlled by his deadly intelligence more than some evolved base instinct. If Quinn was still loyal to Baras, he could launch his thorns right into her chest and kill her. She would not be able to fight back. He was a better tactician than she and she could only trust the Force and her wits for so long until she fell into a trap even she couldn’t get out of.

But the reward, despite all the danger, for working around those thorns...

That would be worth more than a thousand Malreaux roses’ beauties combined.

Praxidice smiled to herself, finally able to meditate now that she had her feelings about Quinn clear and untied. She sat at the end of her bed and closed her eyes.


End file.
